A. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a pouch container, e.g., a pouch for refilling contents in a subject container.
B. Description of the Related Art
A pouch container is used for refilling liquid, powder or grain contents in a subject container. For example, after contents such as detergent, bleach, softening agent, starch, shampoo, rinse, food oil, soy sauce and dressing in a subject container are used completely and the container becomes empty, the contents may be refilled. Liquid contents to be refilled are sold in the form of a refilling container. A pouch container is used as the refilling container.
A pouch container is formed by placing two film shell members or two film shell members with base members one upon the other and thermally sealing the peripheral portion to form a bag shape. A pouch container is constituted of a shell portion for accommodating contents and a nozzle protruding from the shell portion to discharge the contents. The shell portion and nozzle are formed by thermally sealing two shell members on their peripheral area. The nozzle is often formed at an upper end of the pouch or a corner of the pouch between the upper side and a vertical side.
Since the shell member of the pouch is a film material having small rigidity, the shape of the pouch container is not stable and tends to deform while a person holds it with one hand or both hands to refill the contents in a subject container. If the pouch, particularly the nozzle, is deformed, a fluid path in the nozzle may be blocked and the liquid contents cannot be discharged smoothly.
In order to ensure an open state of the liquid path of the nozzle, one of the front and rear shell member is embossed near at the nozzle to give some rigidity to the shell member and form a space for the path between the front and rear shell member (refer to JP-A-2001-97405). Another film formed with a rib is adhered to the shell member near at the nozzle to give rigidity to the nozzle to maintain an open state of the nozzle path in the nozzle (refer to JP-A-2005-67630).
According to the former technique of forming an emboss on one shell member, the shape of the emboss is simple so that sufficient rigidity cannot be given to the nozzle wall and it is not possible to maintain a good open state of the nozzle. According to the latter technique of adhering another film formed with a rib to the shell member, not only the number of components increases but also the number of manufacture processes increases.
It has been long desired to develop the open state maintaining technique capable of maintaining a good open state of a nozzle and having a simple structure without using additional members.